Nehemiah 8:13
Verse 13 of 18. The 8th of 13 chapters in Nehemiah, in History.
9Nehemiah, who was the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “Today is holy to the LORD your God. Don’t mourn, nor weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.
10Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared, for today is holy to our Lord. Don’t be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”
11So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Hold your peace, for the day is holy. Don’t be grieved.”
12All the people went their way to eat, to drink, to send portions, and to celebrate, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.
13On the second day, the heads of fathers’ households of all the people, the priests, and the Levites were gathered together to Ezra the scribe, to study the words of the law.
14They found written in the law how the LORD had commanded by Moses that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month;
15and that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the mountain, and get olive branches, branches of wild olive, myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make temporary shelters, as it is written.”
16So the people went out and brought them, and made themselves temporary shelters, everyone on the roof of his house, in their courts, in the courts of God’s house, in the wide place of the water gate, and in the wide place of Ephraim’s gate.
17All the assembly of those who had come back out of the captivity made temporary shelters and lived in the temporary shelters, for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun to that day the children of Israel had not done so. There was very great gladness.
World English Bible. Public domain. Set as prose throughout, including the poetry, because the text is published to us without its lines.